News

   

The last 24 hours in the Middle East, January 13

Zurab Batiashvli. Research Fellow at Rondeli Foundation 

• Demonstrators still are in the streets of Iran’s main cities condemning Iranian authorities for shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane. Security forces in Tehran used tear gas and opened fire against the protesters. Some demonstrators have reported being injured;
• US President Donald Trump affirmed that Iran will not be able to have access to nuclear weapons. He called on authorities of Iran not to kill their citizens;  
• Four Iraqi soldiers have been wounded when 8 Katyusha type rockets slammed into an Iraqi air base north of Baghdad which has housed troops from the United States. 
• Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian militant group, claims it has launched operations in the Middle East to expel US forces from the region; 
• The United States confirmed that on the night the U.S. assassinated Qassim Suleimani the U.S. launched a similar operation to kill a top Iranian commander Abdul Reza Shahlai in Yemen. He survived, but a lower-level Quds Force operative was killed, and Shahlai went into hiding.    
• Russia hosts a meeting of Libya's rival leaders in Moscow — a mediation effort closely coordinated with Turkey aimed at a ceasefire in Libya; 
• Turkish authorities report that they will accelerate the construction of the Istanbul Canal, which will connect the Black and Marmara (respectively Mediterranean) seas.